According to a latest study of municipal councils, UK councils are preparing to offload community centers, sports centres, and shopping arcades as they bet on a rapid disposal of assets to balance the books.
Growing Financial Challenges Drive Asset Sales
The Key Cities Group for second-tier cities in the UK reported that six out of ten of local authorities are intending to dispose of properties to cover the escalating costs of adult and children’s social care.
Councils have in the past faced criticism for disposing of playing fields and open spaces to shore up their budgets, but they argue they must continue to generate essential revenue from asset sales or declare themselves bankrupt.
The group noted that a significant number of authorities seeking to raise money from a fire sale of holdings represented “a clear change from 2024, when the majority (six in ten) of municipal officials stated they would focus on service redesigns and utilising savings to weather increasing fiscal pressures.”
Specific Examples of Planned Sales
Medway Council in Kent announced its property management strategy included the sale of a retail complex in a local town and a community venue in another town to raise £20m over the next half-decade.
- A local golf course and commercial properties held in Worcestershire and Suffolk, which all provide rental income for the authority, will additionally be sold under the strategy.
Local Levy Increases and Wider Fiscal Pressures
The survey of local authorities in the coalition, which covers several urban centers, further found that more than 70% of authorities will have to increase local levies next spring to cover the growing cost of core provisions, increased rates of homelessness, and a longstanding housing shortage.
Medway council said it will press ahead with asset sales after sharp increases in the cost of children services, support for vulnerable learners, adult social care, and temporary accommodation.
“We are taking creative strategies but some of these take time to achieve both improved services and financial savings,” said a council leader.
He added: “We face demographic pressures which will persist to increase the strains we have. As a unitary authority, we had a 91% cut in our central funding from 2010-24, which is very challenging.”
National Trends and Projections
A survey of county councils this week also found local finances being strained by the growing number of young people and adults needing Send support.
A network of councils projected that council deficits will reach 4.4 billion pounds a year by the end of the decade, as they struggle to cope with rising needs.
Government officials have delayed scheduled changes to the Send system until next year after a white paper outlining those changes has been postponed.
Disadvantage and Funding Gaps
Based on the latest deprivation measures (the Index of Multiple Deprivation) for English councils, several key cities members were among the most deprived in England.
- “Member cities like Hull, Bradford, Stoke-on-Trent, Sunderland and Wolverhampton place in the most deprived 30 across the country under the 2025 IMD measures,” noted the study.
“While only a single urban area is in the top 10 for disadvantaged communities countrywide, urban areas are much more prone to be in the worst-off 20% of England. The figures underscores the scale of difficulties confronting municipal officials across key cities in the next twelve months,” the report concluded.
“Local government leaders have been clear about the necessity for a equitable and lasting financial structure that reflects and addresses the actual extent of disadvantage and demand,” said a council leader.
“Without this, local authorities will persist to face difficult decisions around which vital provisions to allocate spend to, and which to reduce, to the disadvantage of their communities.”
A fifth of local authorities have cut or compromised social care provision in the past 12 months, the survey revealed.